Hush

Hush

I was but a child,
A little girl of ten.
He was my father, my hero,
And he was gone.
The whispers in the front room said,
“Hush! She must not be told.”
“She is too young to know the truth.”
So they tried to keep it from me,
But truth, much like water,
Cannot be held back forever.

Because they thought me a child
They did not notice me
As I stood aside,
Listening and looking.
Because they thought me so young,
They misjudged my wisdom.
Because they did not tell me,
And too frightened to ask,
I sought the answers for myself.
On my own, I searched for why.

He was my father,
But he left me. He took himself away.
Suicide, they kept saying.
Killed himself,
Was what I found out that word meant.
"Borderline schizophrenic",
The doctor told my mother.
"Crazy", I heard them say
When they thought I wasn’t listening.

The dictionary in Daddy’s library said,
“Often unhappy and confused.”
The medical book informed me
That his body was not doing
That which it was supposed to do.
"Caused by a chemical imbalance",
Was what I read.
Something outside of his control.

Daddy always told me
To listen to my heart.
He said that one should seek her own truths.
He never thought I was too young
To know and to understand.
So I used the things he taught me,
To learn the truth about his leaving.
Those written, read, but not spoken words
Allowed me to keep loving.

I was glad they didn’t tell me.
I was happy they thought me too young to know.
I would not have understood from them
That Daddy was not well.
I would not have believed their pastel words
Delivered gently, so as not to hurt.
Pretty words would not have convinced me,
That it wasn't me
Who made Daddy go.